Public Failure and Humiliation I delivered an SSIS Academy presentation yesterday, the first of many (I hope). You can view the recording here (free, but registration required). If you watch around the 57:30 mark, you will notice I encounter a bug in Read More...

There’s a back-story to my post titled SSIS 2016 CTP 3 and Data Flow Column LineageID . I’ll get to the story in a minute, but first I’d like to say that every company has excellent customer service. You don’t believe me? Ask them, “Company, do you have Read More...

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen the buzz about Data Lakes, Big Data, Data Mining, Cloud-tech, and Machine Learning. I watch and read reports from two perspectives: technical and as a consultant. As a Consultant If you watch CNBC, you won’t hear Read More...

Opinions change, and they should change as more and better evidence surfaces. There are words for this: “learning” and “growing” are but two of them. Communication plays a key role in changing opinions. I’ve been studying communication recently and I’ve Read More...

… to some folks more than others. We likely all have stories about working with folks who care a lot about the format of their SQL statements. I’ve worked with a lot of database developers and analysts. I cannot say SQL formatting distinguishes the good Read More...

“ There are two types of developers: those who test their software and those who will. ” – Andy, circa 2015 It’s April Fool’s Day in the US, but I’m going to act like it’s Halloween. Software testing is no joke, and not testing should scare you. In 1996 Read More...

Like my maternal grandfather, Buck Mayhew, did for his grandchildren; my friend Brian Kelley ( blog | @kbriankelley ) gives his children nicknames. A member of an SSIS team where I once worked was known for his tendency to rewrite SSIS packages. Any package, Read More...

It’s 2015 and we still have no flying cars. (Dear Doc Brown, we still need roads. Love, Andy) On a similar note, we’ve suffered through another year of software breaches and empty promises to fix the issues behind them. Brian Kelley ( Blog | @kbriankelley Read More...

John Sansom ( Blog | @SqlBrit ) is committed to sharing “what I believe it takes to be an outstanding Data Professional.” To that end, John shepherded a book project called DBA JumpStart . The concept of the (free!) e-book is: “If you could give a DBA Read More...

Introduction This post is the fifty-seventh part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . A Story… Once upon a time I was a manufacturing systems integrator. That’s a fancy Read More...

Let’s begin with an assertion: “People are more important than process.” – Andy, circa 2008 Whenever an enterprise or institution adopts a new process or policy, that policy should serve people and not shackle them. The nicest thing that can be said about Read More...

Introduction This post is the fifty-fifth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . This post is about starting something. Today is the First Day… … of something. Somewhere, Read More...

Introduction This post is the fifty-fourth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . This post is about you. Me? Yep, you. Two questions: What is your job title? (<—Not Read More...

Introduction This post is the thirty-sixth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page . This post is about how organizations and people plant ideas. “Techganic” I made up Read More...